was in those times more attractive to them than it has been in recent years, and many boys who did not join the boats would go out gudgeon, pike, or trout fishing with persistent zeal. Old gentlemen have told us of getting up in the early morning in the summer half, breaking out through the windows of their dame's or tutor's houses, and getting on the river to fish before the early school, Shooting was also practised on the river both at such times and during the legitimate play hours. The watermen took care of guns for sporting boys, and went with them in pursuit of water-hens, kingfishers, swallows, or any bird that might be found about the eyots, in the willow beds, or up the backwaters of Clewer or Cuckoo Weir. Of course these sports were interdicted; but the use of the river for any purpose whatever was so far forbidden that masters must be shirked in going to or coming from it, and the river itself was out of bounds. The sixth form also had to be shirked in old times, and could have any lower boy punished for being out of bounds; but it must have been a sixth-form boy of no sporting propensities himself who could have given 100 lines to a lower boy caught shooting in the Clewer stream. Was it more or was it less praiseworthy of one of the tutors who caught the same lad with his gun, and only remonstrated with him because it might be dangerous, and not because he was breaking the rules of the school?
No one but an Etonian could possibly understand the anomalous condition of things which made the river out of bounds, though no boy was really prevented from going on it unless he was caught on the way by a master and actually sent back. The fact was that, when on the river, the boy was safe from interference. Once only did a headmaster attempt to stop an eight which be heard was to row up to Surly; this was Dr. Keate, and he was so finely hoaxed that he never even made a second attempt. Hearing that an eight was to go out on a certain day, he threatened to expel anyone who should take part in the expedition, and then went for a walk along the towpath to waylay them. There issued from the Brocas a crew of watermen dressed like the Eton eight, and wearing masks over
